ImageCube is a program written by Lars Vandenbergh to show images of Rubik’s cube where you define what stickers to show.

I wrote a version of ImageCube that can also be used as a model of the Rubik’s Cube. I decided to give away the code, because that’s how cool I am. If you’re only into cubing and not into programming at all, you should just check out what I did with it at the algorithm database or my Rubik’s cube site.

And now for the source. If you have any comments, feel free to leave them here.

My very own website. I can’t believe I didn’t even have this in delicious. LOL. Anyway, here it is, full of programs, tutorials, algorithms, you name it. I also have it under the domain name rubikscubetutorial.com, although I notice that vanderblonk.com gets a lot more hits.

Don’t forget to check out my algorithm database if you’re into speedcubing, or any cubing at all actually.

I was very surprised when I opened up my local (Aruban) newspaper and saw the heading “Prince: Solve the Rubik’s cube.” It says the prince of the Netherlands, Willem Alexander (so not TAFKAP) thinks the problem of world wide water shortage is one that resembles a Rubik’s cube, and we need to fix it.

Here’s a rough translation:

Guatemala-cit — Last Sunday, Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, in the yearly meeting of the inter American Development Bank in Guatemala City, called all 47 countries as a member of this organisation to make progress with the millenium targets of the United Nations.

One third of the 550 million people in these countries do not have access to clean water. and over 125 million people have no sewer system. According to the prince the millenium targets of the UN resemble the Rubik’s cube, an invention of Erno Rubik, which was a famous brain teaser some 30 years ago that was very popular.

One turn in the right direction in one area (e.g. reducing poverty) can have a direct negative influence on another one (like the environment). “That’s why we need cooperation on all areas, so that one side doesn’t take what the other gives. Lets start turning this cube as soon as possible and get all the colors in the right place”, says the prince.

As an example of the problems he mentions the large cultivation of sheer sugar for the production of the bio-fuel ethanol. It’s great for the environmen, but it costs a tremendous amount of water. We need to search for cultivation methods that require less water, says the future king.

Willem Alexander travels all over the world to lobby for his cause. Last week he was in Tokyo for a consultation with the Japanese government. Next Thursday he will speak in Rome on World Water Day.

If he doesn’t know how to solve it he can visit my site, and learn how to solve the Rubik’s cube. Anyway, I thought this was a nice analogy, and one that could very well fit into every day life. Usually the Rubik’s cube is only used as an analogy to a difficult problem, or even an unsolvable problem, which, as we know, is hardly the case.
So maybe we can help solve world poverty by using Rubik’s cube algorithms?

Anyway, here’s the article. Unfortunately no link to an online version, since Amigoe only provides those as a paid service.

The last couple of weeks I have been working hard updating my website www.vanderblonk.com. It’s been fun, but I’m hardly ready, there is so much more to do.

Let me give you a little breakdown of what has been done and what you can expect in the (near) future:

There is a new home page

The applet has already been greatly improved, e.g. you can now enter any parameters of the applet in the url.

I placed google ads. I know not everyone likes ads, but I think everyone mature enough in our field (speedcubing, programming) knows how to disable them. I get a lot of juice from wikipedia of which I am grateful.

And soon:

I will make some help text available for all the new awesome options (which I am not revealing yet)

Not very useful to you, but I will integrate the style of the home page in all of my pages, it’s still a collection of pages, and not a real site this way. Let me know if you like it.